The Writer’s Round-Up 9
The writer’s round-up is a weekly column that provides reflection, advice, and articles in the skills modern writers need: reading, writing, blogging, and marketing. I do the research so you don’t have to!
This week:
Emotional journey: the key to a memorable story.
Make writing automatic for writing (especially blogging) success.
Differentiate yourself by addressing your audience’s hidden desires.
For older entries, look here.
Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
Writing
Ever felt like something was missing from your writing? I recently took a break from writing fiction to read The Emotional Craft of Fiction, by Donald Maass. The book has changed the way I think about my writing: the emotional journey, which was once incidental to my writing, Is now central—possibly more important than the plot, even. This makes sense because more than anything else, people remember how things make them feel. Maass repeats the following tenet throughout his book: readers seek fiction because they want to have an emotional experience. It can be applied to virtually any form of entertainment that centrally involves storytelling. No matter your form or medium, giving your audience an emotional experience will compensate for virtually any other flaw your work has. I’m excited to incorporate this knowledge into my writing—even the blog!
Blogging
Habits have triggers. Discomfort leads to emotional eating. Payday leads to excess spending. What triggers your writing? Use these tips from David Majister make triggers work for you. I reduce friction by having a shortcut to Evernote on my phone’s home screen—it creates a note with the day’s title and tags the note so it automatically shows up in my saved search (tag:.blog tag:blog_post tag:draft).
Marketing
In this article, Levi Borba explains how he improved his business by learning to perceive his audience’s hidden desires. There is no secret to why people buy shoes or cars—they’re considered basic necessities. Most people will lie about the reasons they buy designer goods—the need for status (validation) is implicitly accepted, but speaking of it openly is frowned upon. In Borba’s case, it turned out that consumers didn’t want his consulting services, they wanted peace of mind—the same reason why we buy insurance (legal ramifications notwithstanding). Now his consumers are sold a guarantee—only pay if your problem gets fixed. What are the hidden desires of your target population?